Bear Creek Spire (13,713) is one of those classic peaks that every
aspiring Sierra mountaineer must deal with sooner or later. Seven of us
gathered on the morning of Sat. July 31 to attempt it: David Ress, Bob
Suzuki, Joan Marshall, Eddie Sudol, Carol Snyder, Terry Flood, and myself
(Jim Ramaker). (Carol and Terry are experienced SPS climbers from the San
Diego area -- my second trip in a row where PCS and SPS climbers joined
forces.) Instead of the standard Ulrich route, our goal was the northeast
buttress, with experienced rock climbers David and Bob planning lead the
several class-4 pitches.

We left the Rock Creek trailhead at 7:30 a.m. and hiked into Little Lakes
Valley. The hike up from this trailhead is so easy it's mind-boggling --
you're in nice alpine country right from the parking lot, and after just
three hours of hiking through the gently rolling terrain of meadows and
lakes, you're in position to camp for one of the four big peaks in the
area -- Mills, Abbot, Dade, and Bear Creek Spire. No wonder this
trailhead attracts many casual dayhikers. Mosquitoes were almost
non-existent, a welcome change from my trip three weeks earlier.

We set up camp at Treasure Lakes at 10, then continued up the valley past
Dade Lake under partly cloudy skies. We'd had some light showers at Camp
9 in Yosemite the night before, but the forecast was for improving
weather. Pleasant cross-country travel up slabs, talus, and snow took us
to the foot of the buttress by 1 p.m. The buttress was a sobering though
not terrifying sight, rising 1500' to the summit ridge. The first hour
of climbing was pleasant class 2-3 scrambling with no difficulties.
About halfway up is a steep section of rough-textured, beautifully solid
rock, which we climbed unroped via ramps and ledges on the left side,
with perhaps a move or two of class-4. I thought we'd have hard climbing
from then on, and was surprised to find another long stretch of class 2-3
scrambling with no exposure. All the real difficulties of this route are
right near the top.

Around 3 p.m., Joan decided to descend because of altitude sickness, and
Bob went down with her, which left us with just one experienced lead
climber for the five of us. About the same time, the sky darkened and a
few snowflakes drifted down. But we heard no thunder, so we continued up
and soon reached the area just below the summit ridge where the buttress
merges with a nearly vertical headwall. We got out our two ropes and
David led up this section, then belayed the other four of us up. No
problems, except the pitch took a full hour. We turned left and climbed a
little way unroped along a ledge on the left side of the airy summit
ridge, then roped up for a horizontal pitch on the crest of the blocky,
exposed ridge. To save time, we had one person belay while two climbers
on the rope simul-climbed. David put in plenty of pro to keep us safe.
Our third roped pitch continued along the ridge, dropping down to the
right onto an easy sidewalk ledge.

Now it was 5:30 p.m. and we were at the base of the steep 30' wall right
below the summit, with no time to waste. David soloed the wall via some
thin, exposed face moves over on the right, then belayed the rest of us
as we climbed the awkward squeeze chimney on the left described in Secor
(Carol climbed the airy face moves like David). At the top of the cliff I
was dismayed to see we were still not up -- we had another 40 feet of
ridge-running and then the infamous summit block. We did this part
unroped -- David, Terry, and Eddie climbed up on the summit block, while
Carol and I were content to reach up and slap the highest point. I don't
recommend doing the summit block unroped unless you're an expert -- the
move down from it onto a single shallow foothold is awkward and very
exposed. Eddie lay folded over the summit for a minute or more, unwilling
to push his body out from the slanting face and make the move down.
Finally he did so as the rest of us averted our eyes.

We rapped down the 30' cliff, and then David cleaned the rap anchor and
climbed down unroped. The dark clouds of late afternoon were breaking up,
but the sun was sinking fast, so we hurried down the class-3 ledges of
the Ulrich route. This section is not trivial -- the ledges are covered
with gravel and rubble, and it's possible to get off-route and cliff out.
About 7 we arrived at the sandy class-2 terrain above Cox Col, the
difficulties finally behind us. Descending the moderate snowfield below
Cox Col was no problem except for the slightly snow-phobic southern
Californians. Next was a beautiful section of downsloping slabs and
ledges, some with cascades running down them. Finally we arrived at Dade
Lake, but it was now 8:30 p.m. and we were running out of daylight.
"Another fucking epic," David exclaimed -- with fresh memories of his
18-hour day on Norman Clyde the week before.

This was my first experience getting caught out on the talus in the dark,
and it wasn't bad. It's amazing how long the faint light of twilight
lasts and how much it can help you walk, especially over white granite
boulders. I had a flashlight but didn't need it most of the time. From
our camp, Bob shone his flashlight toward us for over an hour, which was
a great help because the pinpoint of light showed us exactly where to
head and we didn't have to worry about routefinding in the dark. When we
finally pulled into camp at 9:30, Bob handed each of us a hot mug of
soup. What a guy.

It was a happy camp that night as we had a late dinner and crawled into
our sleeping bags. Sunday we slept in a bit and had a leisurely Sunday
brunch. Around 9:30 Carol and Terry hiked out, and Bob and Joan
persuaded Eddie and me to head up Treasure Peak (12,920+), the
junior-sized peak just west of our lake.

We headed up grassy gullies to a scree plateau about 1/3 of the way up,
then contemplated the cliffs of the steep upper pyramid. A direct
assault looked like class-4 or harder, so we traversed up and right onto
a class-3 ledge system just above an area of white rock. After awhile I
spotted a gully over to the right and we entered it. It cliffed out
below us, but formed a hidden highway above us all the way to the summit.
We'd somehow managed to find about the only class-3 way up the east side
of this peak. A short way up the gully, Joan decided to descend, and Bob
again gallantly escorted her down. Eddie and I continued up and summited
at 12:30.

Looking west, we realized we hadn't really climbed Treasure Peak -- an
exposed knife edge separated us from the slightly higher west summit. The
standard route up Treasure Peak is from the west and is class-3. Oh well,
at least we did a mildly sporty climb and got on top of something high.
Views were wonderful because we were in the interior of Little Lakes
Valley and could look off toward high peaks to the east, west, and south.

Eddie and I retraced our circuitous route on the descent, and then we all
packed up and hiked out about 2:30. Instead of taking the use trail back
to the main trail, we went up on the ridge to the east of camp and walked
along the slabs there (a "shortcut" that Bob and David wanted to try).
After a few minutes going cross-country, the only fiasco of the trip
happened. Eddie discovered that his daypack had fallen off his backpack,
and said he was going to retrace his steps for no more than 5 minutes to
look for it. That was the last we saw of him for six hours! We waited
for him for about 40 minutes, with frequent yelling and whistle blowing
to guide him back to us, but no luck. We then decided no point in all of
us waiting, so Bob, Joan, and David hiked out to head for home. I waited
another 20 minutes, blowing my whistle every minute, then decided Eddie
must have gone all the way back to the lake where we camped and taken the
use trail down. I'd been there an hour, and for Eddie to go back to the
lake and return to me would've taken no more than 30 minutes.

So I hiked the rest of the way out in an hour, getting to the trailhead
at 5. Three hours later it was 8 p.m. and still no Eddie! I considered
leaving, figuring Eddie had sleeping gear with him and would just have to
find his own way home. Instead I took a long walk up the trail and
finally at 8:30, there was Eddie. He'd found his daypack, BUT HAD LOST
HIS BACKPACK! Unknown to me, when we split up, he took off his backpack,
and had been unable to find where he left it. He was unclear about just
where he'd been searching for it, but apparently he went too high up on
the ridge and too far east, ending up over near Chickenfoot Lake. He
never heard our yelling and whistling, and ended up searching for three
hours. Good thing I waited -- if I'd left, he would've arrived at the
10,000-foot trailhead at 9 p.m. with nothing but shorts and a t-shirt.

This fiasco ended up okay -- Eddie and I finally got home at 3 a.m. A few
days later, armed with my hand-drawn map, Eddie rented a car, drove from
the Bay Area back up to Rock Creek, hiked in, found his pack, and drove
back home, all in one 22-hour day. Among the lessons to be learned from
this -- always strap things on your pack securely, never drop your pack
in an obscure spot, and never split up without an ironclad plan of when
and where to join up again. After a few days, both Eddie and I managed
to laugh about this little fiasco.